Missing persons who didn’t want to be found

Alot of time is spent in the police department looking for missing persons. Some of the people go off on their own and don’t want to be found. Some will get mad and run away from home. Then there is the young couple who left home to get away from Mom and Pop. Regardless, a lot of hours are used in police departments hunting them.

I remember a case that was given to me to work, when I was in plain clothes. I went in that day and was called in to the office. The head of the investigators gave me a report of an old gentleman who was missing. I looked at the photo and recognized him, he was an old gentleman who lived in East Rome in the projects. I had talked to him on several occasions. I knew him as Amos. Amos was a lively character for his age. He like to tell jokes and when you saw him he usually had people around him. I took the report and got in the police car to try to find him.

I went to his home in the projects to talk to his wife. I was met at the door by a large lady with a broom in her hand. I told her who I was and she invited me in. I asked her some questions about who his friends were and where they lived. She kept referring to him as the old griper. I asked her why she called him the old griper. She gave me a disgusted look.

“That man,” she said, “is the world biggest griper. He gripes about everything and anything.” She paused, I waited. “He can gripe about one thing for a week, never changing the subject. I don’t know what to do with him.”

She looked at me and scratched her head. I waited because I could see that she wanted to say something else. She stood up and I could see tears in her eyes.

“Mister Policeman,” she said, “find him and send him home. I give him a clean house to live in. I keep him in plenty of food and all the loving he wants.”

I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. “I will find him and see if I can get him to come home,” I said, going back to the car.

I had seen Amos over at the corner of Myrtle and Hardy at a small store. He usually was there with a bunch of old cronies telling jokes. I came in from the lower part of Hardy. I could see several old men sitting outside of the store under a tree. As I pulled in I saw Amos. Amos shook his head as I got out of the car. He began to talk, “Mister I am not going back over to that woman. She nags from sun up to sun down. It goes on all day.”

I began to laugh, “Amos she said that it was you who did all the griping.” I watched his face as it changed expression. The others that were there were laughing as hard as they could.

“That woman nags from sun up to sun down. All she knows is to nag, nag.” LONIE ADCOCK